


Triptych, The Miscellaneous Archive

by jacksgreysays (jacksgreyson)



Series: Original Work [7]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Outer Space, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-11-22 02:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11370921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacksgreyson/pseuds/jacksgreysays
Summary: (The collection of loosely related snippets and ficlets set in the Triptych 'verse. Originally posted on tumblr.)





	1. Triptych: Origins (2015-02-22) ficlet

He grows up clambering over and jumping around shuttles in his grandmother’s garage. Between the ages of four to nine he is constantly covered in grease; no matter how thoroughly his parents try to clean him, there is always a smear of it on him somewhere. He wears overalls with a large pocket in the front, enough for three different kinds of wrenches, two kinds of screwdrivers, and a spool of wire, so that he can supply the mechanics under his grandmother’s employ with whatever they shout for. He only knows how to speak Standard fluently, but he can say “I’m a mechanic” and ask if a customer would like an oil change in three other languages by the time he is six. He has a good, if odd, childhood and he is happy.

And then his grandmother dies. It’s not too surprising–she was old, she had a penchant for alcohol, and she still tinkered around with tons of metal and explosive chemicals on a daily basis. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it shakes his nine-year old world. Suddenly the garage is no longer his kingdom and playground, it’s closed and sold, and suddenly his parents decide to move to Terra Secundo. Needless to say, it’s a terrible experience for him.

For a boy who grew up among space shuttles, whose entire existence up until that point had been contained within the network of space stations of The Lattice, being planetside is highly unpleasant. Having learned from the unfortunate fate of the first planet Earth, the Terran government were strict with what could be built on the planet—solar panels in the desert, wind turbines along the coast, sustainable farming and logging, and only one house was allowed per square acre. His parents embrace planet living, loving the natural surroundings and eager to have the space for a larger family. He finds it too quiet, too empty. He spends the next seven years staring at the night sky and yearning to go back. When he’s sixteen he joins his first Guild–Physics, one of the prerequisites for the Engineering Guild–and tries to rebuild the future he dreamt of as a child.


	2. (2015-10-03) ficlet

Westerly breathes and internally recites the ten principles of diplomacy in an attempt to stay calm.

It’s not working.

In two minutes, eight of hir clan members will be brought aboard the station and ze has been assigned to their party. Until they’re escorted to Huaqu. At which point Westerly will be expected to join them.

Ze hasn’t been to hir home-planet in six years.

But this is an honor, surely. To be trusted with such an important mission even though ze is only junior operative. Likely due to hir training in diplomacy… and the fact that ze is the only geshou in the station. In all of SPAN, actually.

There’s a reason why ze is the first geshou to join SPAN and it wasn’t to go back to Huaqu!

Westerly breathes and waits.


	3. The Adventures of Jack and Ness (2015-12-16) ficlet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Adventures of Jack and Ness are unrelated stories revolving around best friends in vastly different worlds and situations.
> 
> This story is obviously set in the Triptych 'verse

Despite being a SPAN operative, Jack is about as tough and sharp as a marshmallow. Which is to say, Ness is the one to fight all of their battles.

It’s just as well, Jack’s talents lie… elsewhere.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Ness mumbles, brushing dust and debris off her uniform. She keeps twitching her nose in an effort to ward of sneezing, but she’s pretty sure it’s not going to work for much longer.

“Neither can I,” Jack agrees, pulling at the guitar strap so the instruments winds around his torso and rests on his back.

They stare at the remains of the enemy ships, at the three giant eel-like creatures swimming happily in the waters, at the utter destruction only twenty meters from their spot on the cliff’s edge.

“This was supposed to be a milk run,” Ness says, pulling her partner away, but never taking her eyes off the planet’s native creatures. The creatures which the scanners had not picked up. The creatures which their team had not been prepared for. The creatures for which megafauna would be an understatement.

The creatures which apparently proved ‘music soothes the savage beast’ as more than just a saying.

“Well… no one on our team is seriously injured…” Jack says trying to be optimistic. But it’s very likely that their teammates will never want to work with them in the future. Given that, yes, this was supposed to be a milk run mission. Except for how Jack and Ness are apparently cursed.

“… They’re never going to let us go on planet side missions again, are they?” He asks his partner, dreading the answer.

“Forget planet side missions,” Ness groans, hiding her face in the crook of her arm, “We’ll be lucky if they ever let us off the ship!”


	4. Triptych: Origins (2015-12-26) ficlet

“What is the population of your planet, anyway?” Edmundo asks, shuffling down the line with his tray and punching his meal choice into the cafeteria’s constructor unit.

“Moon,” Westerly corrects, a spot ahead of him, hir own tray laden down with gently steaming food, “The Qovesh live on three moons, not a planet.”

Br'Joci, following after Edmundo in the line, reaches one long arm around to rub her knuckles against Westerly–a gesture of praise and gratitude. “Afi, the moon I was born on, is the most populated; followed by Ari then Aki,” She explains, the cadence of her voice turning into a practiced lecture. “For Afi alone I think it’s about… maybe three or four hundred.”

“… Thousand?” Edmundo asks for clarification, following after Westerly to a mostly empty table, only a Pakebi pair-bond who seem to be already finished with their own meals.

“Billion,” Br'Joci corrects casually, like that single word hadn’t just blown Edmundo’s mind.

Given humanity’s own population restriction–the Lattice space stations having a maximum occupancy and the government limiting settlement on Terra Secundo–such a number seems impossible.

Westerly laughs–a trilling whistle which zie punctuates with several slaps to the table–no doubt at his wide-eyed, mouth agape expression.

“There’s a reason why most Qovesh-Afi join Guilds as soon as we turn of age,” Br'Joci shrugs, “We’re a nation of immigrant workers.”


	5. Triptych: Origins (2016-01-05) ficlet

The three of them stood, bemused looks on their faces, as they stared at their coworkers linked bodies. There were handcuffs and ropes and, apparently, a large and elaborately woven net hanging from the trees which the natives of the planet used as their prisons.

Edmundo tried very hard not to laugh. Br'Joci didn’t bother holding it in.

“We have to untangle the knots,” Westerly said, eyeing the strategic points which would free their fellow SPANners, “After that, then we can do… Something.”

At that tepid conclusion, Edmundo also burst out laughing, “I thought you were going to say something cool!”

Br'Joci nodded in agreement, “It was almost profound.”

“I don’t know!” Westerly said, flustered, a bright green flush making its way over hir face, “The thought escaped me as I was saying it,” But zie smiled anyway, sheepish.

“Yeah, yeah, real hilarious,” one of the trapped SPANners, a Pakebi with brilliant rose colored fur, snarked, “It’s not like we’re tied up and hanging in a tree, totally uncomfortable.”

“Please get us down now,” added his partner, her own coat a rust orange.

“On it, on it,” Br'Joci muttered, pulling out a knife that was definitely not regulation. In a matter of moments, she had scaled the tree, crawling along the branch which the prison net was attached. On the ground, Edmundo and Westerly pulled out their blasters, forming a loose but wary perimeter around the tree trunk.

“Where’s your third?” Br'Joci asked the two captives, sawing away at the fibrous handcuffs around their wrists.

“Kempo retracted itself into its core. The natives have never seen a Dyur'un, so they assumed Kempo was part of our gear.”

“So we’ll have to do another rescue?” Westerly called up to them, following the conversation.

The Pakebi pair stare at each other, before the pink one shook his head, “Kempo should be able to escape on its own. We just have to get to the rendezvous point.”

“And where’s that?” Br'Joci asked, pulling them up onto the branch and guiding their climb down.

“About fifteen kilometers west,” the orange one said with a grimace, “On the other side of the mountains.”

As one, they all turned west, towards a steep, jagged mountain range that the locals named ‘Demon Spine’.

“That looks like fun.”


	6. (2016-02-10) ficlet

Westerly remembers Huaqu, remembers hir home planet fondly. Remembers its people less fondly–the way other geshou would look at hir, a mix of revulsion and scandalized fascination, even decades after hir sprouting.

Zie hasn’t been back in years, and truthfully, zie doesn’t want to go back. But Westerly has been summoned–hir clan’s Elder Tree is dying, and what made hir a pariah before now makes hir a candidate to become the next Elder Tree.


	7. Triptych: Origins (2016-08-06) ficlet

This far and this fast, the stars are smears of light in the windshield. No clusters or constellations, no shapes made of gravity or long ago mythology. Just pinstripes blazing away across the inky vastness of space.

And if this is what stars amount to, way out here in a sector of the galaxy no geshou has ever been before, then what does that make hir problems? Tiny. Miniscule. Laughable.

Surely zie can handle something as simple as a clan reunion.

Westerly listens to the hum of the ship around hir, the engines and the life support, the other crew members and passengers still awake. It’s not at all like the winds of Huaqu that zie was named for, nothing like the rustling of the Elder Tree’s leaves or the burbling of streams which crisscross Clan Twelve lands, but it’s peaceful, all the same.

There is dignity in making a home away from a planet, though others may call hir a dandelion puff–fickle and selfish and landing wherever zie pleases–if not something worse.

Zie hears familiar footfalls, familiar breaths, doesn’t need to turn to know who it is.

There is dignity, too, in making a family away from hir clan.

“Alright there, Westerly?” Edmundo asks, stepping up beside hir to lean against the railing of the observation deck.

Br'Joci bypasses words completely and brushes a quick hand against Westerly’s arm–qovesh tactile communication, a way to check how one’s trusted are doing without giving their position away. As useful in peace as in wartime.

Zie sighs. Their ship draws ever nearer to Huaqu. Closer to hir home planet than zie’s been in over a decade–not since zie jumped on the first ship out and away, as far as zie could go.

Truthfully, if zie could swing it, zie wouldn’t go back at all, but…

“Not quite.”

… but Clan Twelve’s Elder Tree is dying, which means all members of Clan Twelve are being recalled.

Maybe, if zie really had hated everyone on the planet, zie wouldn’t care. Wouldn’t heed the call. But there are some cousins–most of them on this ship, actually, the ones who had left the planet to join a Guild (though not nearly as many as zie did)–who zie got along with. And.

And, dandelion puff or not, the Elder Tree had always been kind to an abomination like hir.


	8. Cross Post: Triptych pilot [incomplete]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> originally posted on livejournal. sort of the prototype for Triptych, based on the nu!Star Trek movies

Oddly enough, zie has more qualifications to lead a team than they do. It’s not that zie’s dumb, is the thing, it’s just that they’re so bloody competent that in comparison hir position as team leader seems superfluous at best. It helps that zie’s the only one of the three to have graduated Command track, though zie diversified enough that zie’s authorized to wear the Science blues and Operations reds as well.

All students are highly encouraged to diversify, just another change in the Academy post-Nero so that personnel can be rearranged depending on the situation (and casualties). Edmundo is technically listed as a Science officer, astrophysics in particular, though he is also in Operations as an engineering physicist; the administrators tend to use him in either division interchangeably so he’ll often be the only blue shirt in a room of red. Br'Joci, in comparison, is inarguably an Operations officer–dual specialties, Communications and Security–who decided to also take the psychology track and happened to complete enough courses to wear Science blues if she wanted (she doesn’t).

The first introductory psychology class was actually where zie met Br'Joci, and where hir own Science track qualifications come from (hir Operations specialty is tactics, which zie was surprisingly good at factoring the striclty passive culture zie was raised in). Edmundo, zie met after they had all graduated and been assigned to the Enterprise, him as a dual-division idiot who kept inventing (and exploding) unapproved weapons for the hell of it and hir as the unfortunate yeoman tasked with figuring out whom the subsequent report would go to and how best to phrase it to appease their superior officers.

Luckily for them both, the Enterprise is populated with similarly destructive genii so neither Commander Spock nor Chief Engineer Scott particularly mind. And though Br'Joci’s fascination with weaponry quickly bound the three of them together in some kind of violent, sarcastic brotherhood, the number of incidents (and reports) resulting in damage to someone or something only increased. While they aren’t quite at the chaos level to register on Doctor McCoy’s (frightening) radar, Nurse Chapel’s glare whenever one of them (unfairly, typically hir) lands in med-bay is intimidating enough.

Considering such an incident happened just last week, zie’s rather confused by why they’ve been chosen for an away mission that zie’s pretty sure is definitely above hir ability to lead.


End file.
